In a communications network a wireless device communicates via a Radio Access Network (RAN) to one or more Core Networks (CNs). The communications network may also be referred to as e.g. a wireless communications network, a wireless communications system, a communications network, a communications system, a network or a system.
The wireless device may be a device by which a subscriber may access services offered by an operator's network and services outside an operator's network to which the operator's radio access network and core network provide access, e.g. access to the Internet. The wireless device may be any device, mobile or stationary, enabled to communicate over a radio channel in the communications network, for instance but not limited to e.g. user equipment, mobile phone, smart phone, sensors, meters, vehicles, household appliances, medical appliances, media players, cameras, Machine to Machine (M2M) device or any type of consumer electronic, for instance but not limited to television, radio, lighting arrangements, tablet computer, laptop or Personal Computer (PC). The wireless device may be portable, pocket storable, hand held, computer comprised, or vehicle mounted devices, enabled to communicate voice and/or data, via the radio access network, with another entity, such as another wireless device or a server.
The wireless device is enabled to communicate wirelessly within the communications network. The communication may be performed e.g. between two wireless devices, between a wireless device and a regular telephone and/or between the wireless device and a server via the radio access network and possibly one or more core networks and possibly the Internet.
The radio access network covers a geographical area which is divided into cell areas, with each cell area being served by a base station. The base station is in some radio access networks also called Radio Base Station (RBS), evolved NodeB (eNB), NodeB or B node. A cell is a geographical area where radio coverage is provided by the base station at a base station site. The base station communicates over an air interface with the wireless device(s) within range of the base station.
Currently, Internet is in a transition phase from wireline content consumption of e.g. YouTube, Spotify etc. to a radio based consumption. Compared to the wireline transport, the radio is a much more scarce resource with, in some cases, poor performance. There is therefore a need to improve the wireless experience both from a network resource, network efficiency and end user point of view. The wireless experience may be improved by for instance increasing the battery lifetime in the wireless device as well as providing faster and more secure delivery of application data.
In communications networks there is a need for coordination of information associated with a wireless device and its information flow, in addition to the radio condition in the current cell in which the wireless device is located and potential cells to which the wireless device may move in the future. The coordination is performed in order to allow optimal use of expensive radio resources and in order to provide a sufficiently good service to the wireless device as it moves around in the communications network. Different radio technologies use different methods for achieving such information coordination. For example, in Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), the information associated with the wireless device is collected and coordinated in a radio controller. The radio controller may be the Base Station Controller (BSC) in GSM and the Radio Network Controller (RNC) in WCDMA. While in WiFi the information associated with the wireless device is mainly collected and coordinated in the wireless device itself. In Long Term Evolution (LTE), the information is collected and coordinated in the eNB, i.e. the base station. Furthermore different identifiers are used for the same wireless device in different radio technologies.
A problem with the existing technology is how all actors involved with a specific wireless device and its corresponding services should find each other in a way that does not cost more in terms of processing power than the value of the improved usage of the radio resources. In addition, a communications network may support many wireless devices, for example up to 10 000 000 wireless devices of one operator in a single metropolitan area. The enormous amount of wireless devices prohibits the use of simple databases to coordinate the information.